| Abstract: | When firms look outward and consider how issues related to the natural environment are likely to affect them directly they can distinguish two main forms of influence. One is environmental and related regulation which comes in a variety of forms. The other partly overlapping form is market influences. As firms try to adapt to these influences, either they can take an internally focused approach or they can accept that environmental impacts are related to all the stages of life a product passes through and take the inter‐organizational consequences in terms of required co‐operation. Pursuing inter‐organizational environmental management, however, involves a choice of approaches, which are likely to vary greatly in terms of the degree of physical exchange and the cost of arranging and maintaining inter‐organizational relations. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment |
